


Voice In My Head (Part 2)

by AgataVarano



Series: Scar [14]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Cloak of Levitation (Marvel), F/M, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Magic, Murder, Nightmares, Past Abuse, The cloak being a pet, Torture, everyone has more PhDs than brain cells, no seriously everyone is emotionally dumb af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27803371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgataVarano/pseuds/AgataVarano
Summary: After about nine years of emotional dumbassery, the two idiots with a total of four PhDs finally turn on their brains.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Female Character, Original Female Character & Original Male Character, Stephen Strange/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Scar [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826437





	Voice In My Head (Part 2)

**Author's Note:**

> • English is not my first language so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes.  
> • You can find this and more fics on my Tumblr @/let-me-write-my-life and my Instagram @/agata_varano.

_ I let you bury me alive for far too long. - I Prevail (Worst Part of Me) _

_ One drop. Two drops. Three drops. They all fall from the tap, counting how many seconds divide Lara from the inevitable. Alex will be home any minute now. He'll be angry, angry beyond imagination. He'll kick her, punch her, break her face against the sink of the bathroom. He'll drag her to their bedroom. He'll spit on her. He'll choke her. He'll cut her skin with his pocket knife. If he's in a particularly bad mood he'll rape her. Then he'll leave her on the cold floor and she'll silently cry all night, praying whatever is up there in the sky to give her the strength to shoot her sleeping boyfriend in the head in the middle of the night. Or herself. No, she can't. Her life doesn't belong to her anymore. But it doesn't matter because in the morning she'll get in the kitchen and he'll offer her a cup of cheap coffee. He'll apologise. He'll say he loves her. He'll say he will never do it again. He will lie. And she will know it. But she won't care. She'll smile. She'll accept his apologies. She'll take the blame. And that same evening she'll be sitting again against the radiator in the bathroom, waiting for a death that always brushes her skin but never touches her, finally stealing her soul. Maybe it's because she has lost her soul long before. Who knows. The front door is kicked open with unheard violence. He's here. _

He's here.

She opens her eyes slowly, hurt by the strong light of the LEDs on the ceiling. Studying the room around herself, her gaze sets on her wrists, chained to the chair legs with thick grey tape. She tries to close her fists, calling her powers, but pain takes over her and she is forced to hold back a hiss. When she looks down again, her palms are cut open, blood dripping down her fingers.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. Did you sleep well?" Alex's voice sends shivers down her spine. She slowly moves her gaze to his face, a big grin painted on his lips.

"What do you want from me?" She asks.  _ "Be brave," _ she repeats to herself.  _ "You can't do anything anyway." _

Alex breaths out a laugh and steps closer to her, caressing her cheek with his knuckles. "Shhh, sweetheart. I'm the one who makes the questions," he says. "Now," he continues, kneeling in front of her, "when will your friends get here?" 

Lara widens her eyes and tries to clench her fists, before a strong pang of pain makes her rethink her choice. "If you even try to touch them, I swear…"

Her words don't produce the expected result. His grin becomes even wider and he slightly tilts his head. "I just want to talk."

She swallows heavily. "Like with Paul?" She can still remember the poor man's body hanging from that tree. Smiling at her was way riskier than anything else.

He clenches his jaw, remembering how much she had protested when he had done those things. He gets up and reaches for his pocket knife, placed on the nearby table. Applying just enough pressure to cut her skin and see the blood spilling down, he moves the blade along her cheekbone. "Just like Paul," he says, keeping eye contact.

She swallows again, this time more heavily. "You're sick."

He smirks, considering it a compliment. "Of course I am, honey." His hand trails up her shirt and tightens around her neck. "I'm sick for you and you should appreciate it. No one is ever going to love you as much as I do."

Those words hit her like daggers. "I hope so," she whispers, a part of her hoping he hasn't heard her words.

His index finger moves to her chin, forcing her to look up to him. "And I will love you even more if you help me and make sure your friends are not a pain in the ass."

She clenches her teeth. Why would she want to be loved by someone like him? That is not love, it never was. Maybe hers was love, but his for sure wasn't. Love doesn't hurt this much, love doesn't make you afraid to even move. Love doesn't chain you to a chair and cuts your palms wide open to keep you from fighting back. "Never."

As soon as that word leaves her mouth, she is violently slapped on the cheek. Alex digs his nails in the opposite side of her face. "I'm afraid I misunderstood. You will help me, won't you?" He speaks between gritted teeth and fear seems more and more unbearable.

This is when she would have apologised, hoping his punishment wouldn't be too severe. But she isn't that person anymore. She closes her eyes for a second and swallows. "Not even in your craziest dreams."

She hisses in pain when he punches her jaw, then his elbow hits her face and his knee her stomach. Finally his knife reaches her throat, preventing her from swallowing. "It's not that hard, doll," he says, even angrier than before if possible. "You just have to call your friends and tell them to come here alone and disarmed because we've found an accord. I'll take care of everything else."

She looks down at the blade pressed against her neck, then at his eyes, filled with maniacal rage. "Why should I help you?" She asks coldly, the iron taste of blood getting stronger in her mouth.

He grips her face in one hand, digging his nails in both her cheeks. "Because otherwise you'd be a bad girl and we both perfectly know what happens to bad girls."

His face is so close he could spit in her eyes any moment. His hot breath seems to burn her skin and her mind is, just like in the old days, trying to convince her to give up. But she doesn't. "I'm not changing my mind."

He takes a step back, letting go of her face, before his knuckles punch her nose and face over and over, until his hands are red from blood. He screams. "What made you think that I was asking?"

She bites her inner cheek. She knows it, she's perfectly aware that by answering back she'll only make it worse, but she wants it to hurt, she wants to learn her lesson once and for all. She wants every single part of her body to hurt until even the remotest part of her mind knows how sick and twisted he is. Because how is someone supposed to know fire burns without ever touching it? "What made you think that I'd help you?"

That's it. He's mad beyond imagination. He plants his knife in her thigh and starts twisting and turning it, moving it deeper and deeper. All of her hisses of pain are nothing but a source of pleasure for him. "Do you really think that bunch of idiots will come rescue you, followed by that coward you dare to call your brother? I hope you did not fall that low, my dear."

She whines when he removes the blade from her flesh. Then he makes the knife run down her thigh, cutting her leg quite deeply. "I know what you're thinking," he says. "I'm sorry that I left you, but I forgave myself, so you can do it too. Love is about this after all."

"At least shut up," she whispers with what remains of her voice. Has the room always been this cold? With a quick glance she can see her hands turning paler with each passing second.

He abandons her thigh to focus back on her neck, digging his nails in her skin. "Do you remember what you told me years ago, sweetheart? Do you?" She just shakes her head. Maybe she does, but she doesn't want to put much effort in it. "I'll remind you, then," he says with a grin, his grip tightening just enough to make it hard for her to breath. "You told me that I had your heart, forever and ever. You told me that you loved me more than everything else. You told me that I was too good for you." His bloodstained knife sets on her neck, right under his hand. "What happened to those feelings, my darling?"

His words hurt. Because they're true. She loved him more than anything else. Because she knew nothing else. A warm tear trails down her cheek, mixing with all the blood and dirt covering her cheek. Why does fire hurt so much?

He shows his gritted teeth again, shaking her neck violently. "Speak, you whore!" He screams and his voice echoes in her head.

She doesn't listen to him and closes her eyes for a second.  _ "Stop, please stop."  _ A sudden pain in her neck as his blade cuts her skin forces her to open her eyes wide and she weakly moves her fingers. Alex's body is violently pushed away and she takes advantage of those few moments to break her restraints. She tries to stand up, taken over by optimism, but she soon clashes with the hard truth. And with the floor. Once again she is kicked over and over, her stomach and face hurting more and more. She can't even imagine how much blood she's spilling on the ground.

She stops one of his kicks with her magic, her palms hurting in an unimaginable way, and she throws him against the metal door, his broad shoulders leaving a bump in the iron. She's about to get up but falls again under the weight of the growing pain in her whole body. 

She hisses in pain, tears in her eyes, while Alex rolls on his side and gets back up with little difficulty. He takes a few big steps towards her and slams her against the table, both his hands around her throat with the sole intent to kill her once and for all. She digs her nails in his forearms, whining for air, and creates a rather small amount of acid that slowly burns his skin.

He lets go of her with a pained scream, then furrows his brows and plants his knife deep into her abdomen, before the handle begins melting under his touch, burning him. Once again Lara pushes him away, but this time she doesn't try to stand up. Instead, she lays on the floor, pressing a hand to her stomach. She can only swallow when she sees Alex pointing a gun at her head.

The door slams open, Jonathan taking a few steps forward with his gun pointed to Alex's head. "One move and you're dead," he says coldly.

The other one just grins, not moving his eyes from the bloody mess in front of him. "You'd get no advantage from updating your criminal record, Houghton," he comments.

"But a lot of satisfaction for sure," Jonathan concludes, before other people step into the room and Alex raises his hands in surrender. Lara can't see who has just arrived, her gaze set on Alex's smug face as he admires one last time his masterpiece. Considering the voices she can hear not so distinctively, the two dragging him away could be Steve and Rhodey.

Her vision is covered by Jonathan, crouching beside her. "Elle?" He's almost whispering. Or maybe his volume is the same as usual and she just can't hear him properly, her heartbeat is just so loud in her head. He moves a shy hand to hers, but retracts it in panic when he sees his fingers tinted red. "F*ck," he mutters.

She tries to use all the voice she has left. "Jon, are the prisoners-?"

"Shhh, it's gonna be okay, do not worry," he interrupts her, visibly panicking.

She chuckles, her bluish lips stretching, even though the moment doesn't exactly seem the best. "Are you trying to convince me or you?"

He shakes his head, panicking even more. "Me? You? Both? Listen, shut up and stop bleeding out," he cuts short.

She yawns. "It's not like I can control it…"

After inspecting her stomach, he applies pressure to her wound, a concerned smile forming on his lips. "You really are a pain in the ass when you're dying, you know?"

She smiles weakly. "What can I say, get used to it," she murmurs, almost passing out.

She's brought back by Jonathan shaking her shoulders. "Hey! Lara!" He turns for a moment to someone who may be Sam, she's not sure. "Can you give me a hand please?"

In a second she's being lifted up, her hand still resting on her stomach but not applying any pressure anymore, and what sounds a lot like Sam's voice is echoing in her head. "Okay Lara, I need you to stay awake, understood?"

She nods weakly, not convinced.  _ "Easy to say for you," _ she thinks,  _ "you haven't just discovered fire burns." _ And, despite all her efforts, the dark embraces her one more time.

Everything hurts. So. Damn. Much. Where is she? And why does everything hurt? What's happening? She's moving, like a pack that hasn't been secured in the back of a car, but the driver doesn't care and goes on turning left and right over and over. The air smells of blood and there is a strong taste of iron all over her mouth. Then something bites her arm and instinctively screams, her voice giving birth to an uncontrollable chaos around her. The dark space she is in suddenly fills with screams and curses and she's not even sure which ones come from her mouth and which don't. And everything hurts. Every muscle, every bone, it's just as if she were rolling down a mountain and her body were being cut by all the rocks and branches. The noise is so loud and her body hurts so much she can't even think, everything is dark and painful and- 

And then suddenly everything is bright and she feels light, free. Nothing hurts anymore. Around her there's only calm and peace. And blue butterflies.  _ A lot _ of blue butterflies. The noise has stopped, now there's only silence. What kind of place is this? She takes a step forward. And everything shatters.

She's in a bed. A rather comfortable bed, if she has a say in the question. Everything is white and clean, out of the window there's only the blue sky, something quite unusual for a city like Oklahoma City. Or New York. Or whatever place she's in, at this point she doesn't even care. She just wants to rest. She slowly turns her head to the side and almost screams when she sees a very well known piece of clothing standing beside her bed, in a hospital room of an undefined city, and more in general in a place where it's not supposed to be at all.

Then she takes a breath and smiles, the Cloak moving a lap to caress her arm. After a moment, it lays on top of her, covering her and proving itself quite jealous of those white blankets over her body. She giggles, petting it like an affectionate cat.

The door opens and Lara can recognize Christine rolling her eyes at Jonathan being the annoying overprotective brother he always is. "I've already told you I have no idea when she will-" she stops in the middle of the doorway with eyes wide open, Jonathan crashing against her back.

Lara smirks, still petting the Cloak. "What am I expected to do exactly?"

In no more than a second she has Jonathan tightly hugging her and burying his face in her messy hair. Christine is smiling in the background and quietly leaves the room. Jonathan rubs her back soothingly and presses a kiss to her temple. "Are you okay?" He asks as he parts from her, still ignoring the Cloak wrapping around his arm and asking for attention.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answers, moving a hand through her hair to put some rebel locks back in place. She tries to sit up, but she needs Jonathan's help to get comfortable on the bed, her palms still hurting like hell. After throwing a quick glance out of the window, she sets her eyes back on her brother. "Let me guess, we are back in New York."

He nods and suddenly smiles. "Do you know you've punched a nurse?"

She opens her eyes wide. "I did  _ what _ ?"

He laughs, adjusting himself on the foot of the bed. "You wouldn't stop moving, so he tried to use a sedative on you but you punched him." He smirks. "They had to call your charming prince to put you to sleep with magic."

She scoffs and crosses her arms on her chest. "And you were laughing your ass off the whole time, I suppose."

He grins. "It was quite funny, I have to admit." He moves the Cloak from his lap and gets up. "Do you want something to drink?"

She nods before falling back on the bed, the Cloak taking advantage of Jonathan's absence to wrap around her arm and caress her face with its collar. She chuckles. She's never been happier to be in a hospital.

It's been about eight hours since Lara has woken up. For most of the time she's been with Jonathan, who described with abundance of details the cute dark-haired woman at the hospital reception. "If you had not been dying, I would have asked her number," he said, a small pout forming on his face. Then Jonathan left and Elize came. She complained about him being unbearably annoying when it came to Lara's health, to which Lara could only agree.

Now the room is empty of everyone but Lara and the Cloak of Levitation, still curled in her lap. The effects of Stephen's sedative spell have almost faded away completely, yet she's never felt more tired. Blaming it on all the painkillers she's on, she rolls on her side and snuggles her face in the pillow. She yawns as she looks out of the door a nurse has left slightly open, a few caregivers and relatives walking down the luminous corridor towards their intended room to keep the different patients company for the night. She sighs and closes her eyes, feeling the Cloak covering her body as she drifts off to sleep.

The sound of an ambulance entering the hospital parking lot suddenly wakes Lara up. She bolts upright but, upon finding the room without any threat worth her attention, she lets out a breath. Then her gaze falls down on the bed, slightly dipping on one side, and the man dressed in blue robes asleep on that uncomfortable plastic chair beside it, his crossed arms resting by her side with his head on top of them. A corner of her lips turns upwards at that sight and Lara gestures the Cloak on her lap to go cover the man's shoulders. She takes a moment to move a strand of hair away from his face before she lays back down and falls asleep again.

_ Lara breathes in the wooden scent around her as she walks down the dark hallway, the only sound being her footsteps on the black floor tiles. Something, or rather someone, pushes her on the ground and she turns just in time for a hand to tightly wrap around her throat. She gasps for air, trying to move the restraint away from her neck, but before she can do anything the ground starts absorbing her. She is in a panic, struggling to push the unknown person away as another hand begins strangling her and the ground slowly opens more and more beneath her. She screams as her legs disappear into the ground and her vision becomes more blurry. _

She sits up with a gasp, her forehead covered in sweat. As the sudden rush of adrenaline burns off, she starts feeling pain in her bandaged hands again. Maybe putting all her weight on them to get in a sitting position wasn't a brilliant idea, not even for a panicking mess like her. Her eyes flutter closed and she covers her face with her hands, breathing deeply. Her heart is probably racing at its fastest.

A hand shyly reaches for her arm. "Are you okay?" And in that moment Lara realises that no matter its speed, her heart can  _ always _ beat faster. Stephen's voice is low and deepened by sleep, a strand of hair falling on his face, and she tries to convince herself the shivers running down her spine are caused by the cold breeze coming from the open window.

She slowly retrieves her hands from her face, turning to him, who is sitting in front of her on the bed, and nods, struggling to bring her gaze on his eyes and away from his mouth. Her heart is racing like it could jump out of her chest any moment. "I-" she stutters. "Sorry… for waking you up."  _ "As soon as I find out who allowed him in here in the middle of the night, I'll kill them." _

"Don't worry," he mumbles as he leans forward slightly, his gaze running from her face to her hands and back to her eyes. He's now no more than a couple inches closer, but it's enough to completely throw all of Lara's neurons out of the window. She swallows.  _ "Don't look at his lips, don't look at his lips, don't look at his li-" _ And she looks at his lips. _ "F*ck..." _

At least, according to Stephen's expression, his situation is in no way better. He bites his inner cheek as his gaze slides down to her mouth, but he suddenly straightens and sets his eyes on hers. He tries to express some smart thought, or at least a coherent one, but unfortunately all his synapses seem gone and nowhere to be found.

Lara doesn't know how much time passes, she just knows that they have not stopped unconsciously leaning forward and Stephen's breath is warm on her cheeks. But it's only a pleasant sensation because of the cold air coming through the window, right?

_ "No, you dumb idiot." _ Lara's inner self does not agree with her.  _ "No wonder Elize thinks you're as emotionally stupid as you're short." _ After this last comment, Lara takes a mental note to never ask for her inner self's opinion ever again.

Regardless of her inner torment, Lara has to admit the air outside isn't really that cold. She tries to say something, literally anything, but she just manages to part her lips, stutter briefly and close her mouth again. She looks at his mouth again and bites her bottom lip.  _ "Damn..." _

After a few seconds of awkward staring, Lara shakes her head.  _ "F*ck it." _ She plants her palms to Stephen's cheeks and presses her lips to his. He gasps against her mouth in surprise, before finally giving in and wrapping his arms around her waist. As he pulls her closer, she slides her hands in his hair, gently pulling the silky strands and earning a few satisfied grunts from him. She licks the seams of his mouth and he lets her tongue in, too busy devouring her cracked lips and fisting her shirt in a desperate attempt to pull her even closer.

They go on with their little dance, Lara dragging him down and Stephen bringing her up, for a while, until they're stopped by their shared need for oxygen, which forces them both to separate. Eyes still closed, Stephen leans with his forehead on hers and smiles. "Your brother is going to kill me, isn't he?" He jokes, his voice hoarse.

She breathes out a weak laugh and bites her lip, a thumb slowly tracing his jawline. "F*ck him," she says, finally bringing her eyes back to his.

Stephen smirks and pecks her lips, slightly digging his nails in her sides. "What about his sister?"

Lara chuckles and tugs on his shirt as she moves even closer than she already was. "We can arrange that."

In no time they both have their arms locked around each other again, their mouths pressed together. As Lara wraps her arms around his neck and plays with his hair, Stephen lets his hands wander up and down her back, until they find a comfortable spot right in between her shoulder blades. She moans softly against his mouth when he starts massaging her scalp and he has to appeal to all of his self-control to slowly lie her down. He positions her on the bed carefully, almost as if she could break in his hands like a crystal glass, and gently removes her arms around his neck.

He holds one of her hands, covered in bandages and still slightly hurting, and starts peppering kisses from her palm down to her wrist. Silently damning the bandages covering her skin, she uses her free hand to grab his jaw and pecks his lips. He smiles against her mouth, slowly parting from her and placing a kiss to her forehead. "Now sleep, before your brother seriously kills me."

She arches a brow as he sits back on his plastic chair. "Maybe helped by Elize," she comments sarcastically.

He smirks. "And don't forget Wong."

She chuckles, rolling on her side and snuggling her face in the pillow. "Whatever. Goodnight," she mumbles in between yawns and before she can even realize it, she's asleep, this time free of any nightmare.


End file.
